


The Farther I Fall, I'm Beside You

by coldrottingtrees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Castiel in the Bunker, Coda, Episode: s09e16 Blade Runners, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Mark of Cain, Men of Letters Bunker, Mind Control, Rape Aftermath, Season 9 Fix, Torture, Violence, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldrottingtrees/pseuds/coldrottingtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the SPN Kinkmeme. </p><p><a href="http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/84092.html?thread=31628668#t31628668">Original prompt:</a><br/>"So, the boys haven't seen Cas in quite a while, have they?</p><p>So after Magnus is killed, they take a little time before they leave, looking around...</p><p>Deep in Magnus's house, they find cages where his creatures are locked away - and in one of them, they find the pride of Magnus's collection.</p><p>An angel. <i>Dean's</i> angel.</p><p>And Magnus has spent a lot of time experimenting on him, in the name of 'science' - some of which experiments were of a sexual nature...</p><p>Dean and Sam take him home and take care of him."</p><p>Title and chapter headings are from "We're In This Together," by Nine Inch Nails <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nineinchnails/wereinthistogether.html">[lyrics]</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As Lost As I Get, I Will Find You

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged it "Happy Ending," but I think I should disclaimer it as, "As Happy as I Could Possibly Humanly Make an Ending for a Coda of Supernatural Season 9"

“Ugh,” Dean grunted, rubbing at the insides of his elbows where the chains had chafed. “What a sick fucking bastard. No wonder the Men of Letters kicked his ass out.”

“He didn’t… hurt you or anything, did he?” Sam asked carefully.

“No! Ugh, Jesus, no. Let’s just get out of here, everything about this place is giving me the heebie jeebies.”

“We should at least check the place out before we race off. There's got to be some really useful stuff in here, and without Magnus here to maintain the wards, eventually this place’ll probably just become visible again, and who knows whose hands this stuff’d fall into? Might as well be ours.”

“Yeah, good point,” Dean assented with a nod, though a scowl of disgust still lingered on his face. “We should take out whatever other monsters he’s got locked up in here, too. They’ll just end up loose eventually, otherwise.”

Sam nodded.

“Go wait outside,” Dean barked at Crowley.

“Seriously?” Crowley moaned, looking wounded. “I just saved the both of you miserable fuckheads and you’re going to kick me out for the fun part?”

“Yeah,” Sam glared.

“Unbelievable,” Crowley muttered loudly. Dean and Sam both glared at Crowley pointedly until he did as he was told and left.

Dean managed to find a dusty set of old leather luggage, which Sam considered a surprisingly pragmatic choice on Dean's part as far as things to go looking for in a house full of wacky, but they did turn out pretty handy as far as stuffing them full of all of the artifacts they wanted to "re-home." Once they’d taken everything they could fit, they left the suitcases by the door and went hunting for where Magnus kept his monsters.

It was Sam who eventually found a switch that opened a hidden door that led to the basement.

“It’s always a creepy basement,” Dean muttered as they descended the staircase. Looking around, he could hear the words _sex torture dungeon_ in Kevin’s dismayed voice echoing in his head.

The walls were hung with implements, many of which had uses that Dean did not even want to guess at. There were several long tables, some of which were stocked with more supplies, but most of which were outfitted with restraints and drain holes. There were aisles of cages, almost all of which were filled. The cages were labeled with cards in Magnus’s elegant handwriting, labelling whatever type of monster was stored within, and, occasionally, a name. The cages were just tall enough to allow most of the monsters to stand, but not wide or long enough for any of them to lay down fully stretched out. Most of the monsters were awake, having heard or smelled the approach of strangers, but some were curled up fetal on the floor, either asleep or, possibly, dead.

“Fish in a barrel,” Dean said coldly, taking out his pistol. “At least this’ll be quick and easy.”

Sam grimaced but couldn’t argue. They were here to take out monsters, not hold court to see if any of them deserved better than execution inside a cage.

“What’ll we do with the ones that silver bullets don’t kill?” Sam asked, taking out his own gun.

Dean hesitated. “I… guess I can use the First Blade,” he eventually said. “It’ll probably kill anything.”

Sam nodded, and Dean shot the monster in the nearest cage in the head. The shot rang out, painfully loud in the concrete basement, and several monsters started howling and screaming. Others clawed at their cages, at the concrete floor, seeing what was coming and trying vainly to escape.

Sam took a deep, steadying breath, and shot the next monster in line.

By the time they’d finally finished butchering everything in Magnus’s collection, they were walking through streams of blood that all flowed toward a drain in the center of the floor. Their ears were ringing from the gunshots, and Dean was shaky and buzzing from having used the First Blade on three of the monsters. Sam had taken it away from him after that, for which Dean was quietly grateful.

They were about to leave when Sam noticed tracks in the dirt on the floor by the wall, sweeping out in an arc, a giveaway for a hidden door. He and Dean searched the wall and eventually found the switch that opened it.

This room had its own sink, and contained another table with restraints, walls hung with more torture devices and scientific instruments, another drain in the floor, and a single cage, larger than all the others. In it was an eyebolt in the floor, and chained to the eyebolt by a thick collar around his neck, huddled in the corner hugging his knees in cuffed and chained hands, was Cas, enormous, ragged, bloody wings visible behind him.

“Oh my God, Cas,” Dean breathed, holstering his gun and rushing over to the cage.

Cas’s eyes widened and he quickly pulled his shabby wings around himself, as if trying to hide. But the wings had only a smattering of feathers, so the effect was lost.

Dean’s hands were still shaking from using the First Blade, and from the anxiety rushing through him at seeing Castiel this way. He tried to pick the lock on the cage but he kept fumbling, and then dropped his lockpicks. He cursed as he bent to retrieve them, and Sam gently shouldered him out of the way so he could pick the lock, instead.

“It’s okay, Cas, it’s just me and Dean,” Sam said as he worked the lock. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

Sam swung the door of the cage open. “C’mon, Cas,” he said gently. “Come let me get that chain off you.”

Dean was so devastated by the sight of Cas this way that he felt light-headed and breathless. He stared helplessly, shaking hands held in fists at his sides. He noticed a card in a label holder above the door of the cage, and in Magnus's ornate cursive it read _Angel - "Castiel.”_

Dean stared at it, sickened and furious.

 

* * *

 

Cuthbert was startled by a knock at his front door. No one had knocked on that door in 58 years.

Through the window, he saw a man, in perhaps late middle age, who appeared unarmed and had a friendly smile on his face as though making just an ordinary social call.

Cuthbert opened the door.

“Hello!” the man said, smiling. “I understand you’re Cuthbert Sinclair, and I have a deal I’d like to offer that I think you’ll be _quite_ interested in hearing out.”

“Come in, then,” Cuthbert said, opening the door wider and gesturing the man in. He led the man to his parlor, and sat down.

“My name is Metatron,” the man said, extending a hand for Cuthbert to shake across a coffee table between their two chairs. “You may have heard of me.”

Cuthbert shook his hand, eyeing him curiously.

“What you may not have heard is that there is a _lot_ of trouble with Heaven lately. And there are angels going _rogue_. And while I’m doing everything I can to fix this, it doesn’t help having my own kind gumming up the works. And I know that you happen to have a dungeon that is _very_ difficult to break into or out of. And, I know that you have quite a penchant for expanding your collection. So, here’s the deal, Cuthbert. Can I call you Cuthbert? I’ll teach you how to contain an angel, top secret Enochian stuff, very, very dangerous stuff for any human to know, _and_ I’ll even help you catch one. All you have to do is keep it. You get your very own angel, Cuthbert, and all I ask is that you take just the one I give you, and that you keep it forever.”

Cuthbert sat back in his chair, taking this all in. After a long and thorough consideration, he nodded, smiled at Metatron, and held out his hand.

“Yes, sir, you have yourself a deal.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel sat in the coffee shop where Metatron had been sighted recently multiple times. He was alone. He’d sent the other angels who’d been looking to him for orders to other locations in town, telling them to report back if they saw Metatron. In truth, he just wanted to keep them out of harm’s way in case Metatron did return to this shop. Castiel intended to handle Metatron alone, and to keep as many of the remaining angels safe as possible.

There was already so much suffering on Castiel’s hands. So much death. It was in Castiel’s nature to protect, and so he was doing what he could to take this on himself, and protect as many others from any further harm as he could.

“Is this seat taken?”

Castiel looked up, saw a handsome man smiling at him as he pulled a seat out at Cas’s table and sat down.

“I’m… waiting for someone,” Castiel said awkwardly, unsure how to handle this.

Before Castiel could get up to leave, the man reached across the table and pressed his hand on top of Cas’s. Cas felt a sigil burn into the back of his hand as the man whispered a few words of Enochian that instantly rendered him mute.

Castiel stared at the man, wide-eyed. The man then put his other hand on Castiel’s forehead and quickly whispered a spell in Latin. It shouldn’t have worked, not on an angel, but the sigil burned onto his hand was ancient magic, something no human should know, and it burdened Castiel with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of his human vessel. And so, when the man lowered his hand, his spell had fully taken hold, and Castiel’s will was drained away, leaving him pliant and obedient.

“Come with me, Castiel,” the man said, and Castiel stood up and followed him out of the coffee shop.

 

* * *

 

“Cas, I’m coming in, okay?” Sam said, stepping slowly into Cas’s cage.

Dean’s heart clenched at the way Cas trembled behind his tattered wings. This was _wrong_. Cas was strong and fearless, he was an _angel_ , he was invincible. To see Cas _afraid_ … it was disturbing and it _hurt_.

Sam stopped a step away from Cas, trying to decide what he should do. While he thought, he studied Cas’s wings, astonished to be able to see them. It was then that he noticed sigils crudely sewn into the flesh of Cas’s wings with black suture thread. He wondered if it was these sigils that rendered the wings visible and corporeal.

He knelt in front of Castiel, careful not to step on or jostle the chain leading to his collar. He studied the cuffs on Cas’s wrists, and the chain connecting them. The cuffs were thick leather, inscribed with sigils, and the chain had a sigil etched into each link as well.

“Cas,” Sam said softly. “It’s okay. It’s just me and Dean. We’re here to get you out of here, okay? Just… open up your wings, and let me get that collar off you.”

When Cas didn’t respond, Sam decided to try reaching out and moving a wing out of the way by hand. But the moment Sam’s fingers barely brushed against the raw, exposed flesh of one of his severely damaged wings, Cas gasped loudly and shoved away hard, scooting back across the floor. His wings flared out, bashing against the bars of the cage on either side.

“Don’t touch me! Leave me alone,” Cas said, voice desperate and weak.

Dean grabbed Sam and pulled him out of the cage.

“Stay back, Sammy.”

Sam nodded, unnerved by the display of Cas’s wings. They were intimidating, even as mutilated as they were.

Dean stepped slowly into Cas’s cage, holding up his empty hands in a placating gesture.

“Cas, buddy, we’re not gonna hurt you. We just wanna get that thing off you and get you out of here,” Dean said.

Cas only flattened himself back further against the bars of the cage, and his eyes flickered repeatedly to where the Mark of Cain was hidden behind Dean’s sleeve. The raw fear in Cas’s eyes made Dean question whether Cas even saw him at all, or only saw him as something bearing the Mark.

“Please, Cas, it’s me,” Dean said softly. “I don’t wanna do this the hard way, but we’ve gotta get you outta here, one way or another.”

Cas’s head shook minutely, and his wings slowly drew back up against his body, trying to shield himself. Dean could just barely hear, in a shaky whisper, Cas pleading, “Father, please, help me…”

It broke Dean’s heart, but, irrationally, it made him mad, too. He was furious that God could let his children suffer like this. He was furious that he’d already killed Magnus before he knew he’d done _this_ , could never make him _pay_ for this, now. And, most deeply of all, he hated himself, because he was the one who’d kicked Cas out of the bunker. He’d abandoned Cas at his most vulnerable, and _this_ is where he’d ended up. And after all this time not hearing from him, not knowing where he’d gone or what he was doing, _this_ is where he’d been.

He was _furious_ , and this was _wrong_ , and he couldn’t let this stand, not for another second. It was fury when he grabbed the chain leading to Cas’s neck with ungentle hands, pulling him up from the floor. Cas made a frightened noise, and his wings beat frantically, some of his precious few feathers breaking or falling as they slammed into the bars of the cage. Dean hauled him close by the chain, trying to see how the chain was secured to the collar so he could remove it.

“Sam, come help me, come pick this lock,” Dean said, grabbing Cas’s cuffed wrists to keep him from trying to shove Sam away. It was disturbing, how easily he could overpower Cas now, as easily as he would have overpowered an underfed Jimmy Novak.

Sam came into the cage, dodging Cas’s wings, a distressed look in his eyes.

“It’s just a padlock, I don’t see any sigils on it, just pick the lock,” Dean said, trying to keep Cas still. He eventually had to hold Cas’s wrists by one hand on the chain between them, and then grab Cas’s jaw in the other to hold his head up and out of the way while Sam worked.

“I’m so sorry, Cas, I’m working as fast as I can,” Sam said, graceful fingers working the lockpicks into the padlock at Cas’s throat.

Sam’s shoulders sagged with relief when the padlock popped open. He quickly pulled it free of Cas’s collar, and the heavy chain fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

“Can you get the collar off?” Dean asked, still gripping Cas’s jaw.

Sam studied the collar, running his fingers across it. It had a locking mechanism, but it didn’t appear to be something he could open with the tools he had on hand. It was probably at least partly magical.

“No, no, I can’t. We should research this before we try to remove it; I’m afraid trying to force it might hurt Cas.”

“What about the wrists?”

Sam looked them over. “Same thing,” he said regretfully.

Dean took off his jacket and wrapped it around Cas as best he could with the wings in the way.

“Alright, c’mon, Cas. Let’s get out of here.”

Cas lifted his chained hands to grip the jacket but dug in his heels, not wanting to go anywhere with them.

“Damn it, Cas, come _on_ ,” Dean growled, tugging Cas by the arm. “Sam, help me.”

Between the two of them, they managed to drag Cas from the cage and out of the room. He gasped and fought even harder when he laid eyes on the carnage in the main room of the basement, the floor still red with blood. Getting him up the stairs was especially difficult given the precariousness of dragging a man who was fighting back up a narrow flight of stairs, and Dean nearly lost his patience, but Sam talked them both through it without resorting to violence.

Dean tightened his grip on Cas and dragged him single-handedly out of Magnus’s estate to the Impala so Sam could carry the suitcases filled with artifacts.

Dean was both irritated and a little relieved to see that Crowley had ditched them and was not waiting by the car. He grit his teeth at the prospect of fighting Cas into the backseat, but surprisingly, Cas relaxed slightly at the sight of the car and stopped struggling.

“See? You know Baby,” Dean crooned to Cas comfortingly. “It’s just us, Cas, it’s me and Sam.”

Castiel stared at Dean, eyes still jumping back and forth from Dean’s eyes to his marked arm. He said nothing.

Dean opened the back door, and Cas got in willingly. He had to struggle, between his wings and the short slack of chain between his wrists, but Dean kept his hands off and let Cas do it himself, hoping that would frighten the angel less. Once Cas was safely inside, Dean shut the door for him, and he and Sam got into the front. Cas eventually laid down, Dean’s jacket tucked against his cheek, wings draped over his body, partially hiding him from view.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Dean whispered desperately as he drove, maybe to Sam, maybe just to himself.

Sam’s heart ached for them both - for the broken angel in the back seat and for Dean, who loved him.

 

* * *

 

Castiel hung, arms stretched over his head, in his cage, helplessly. Magnus had looped the chain between Castiel’s wrists over one of the bars of the top of the cage, which stretched Castiel up high enough he had to stand on his toes.

“Tell me how this feels, Castiel,” Magnus said, drawing a sigil on Cas’s back with a paintbrush dipped in blood he’d drawn from one of his shapeshifters. “I’m terribly curious.”

Once he’d completed the sigil, Magnus spoke a few words of Old Chinese and then stepped back. The sigil glowed blue briefly, then burned itself into Cas’s flesh like a brand.

Castiel howled in pain.

“Ah, yes, I thought it might hurt. It might get worse,” Magnus said, watching Castiel in fascination.

Cas trembled, sweat running down his back, wracked with pain. His muscles tore, shifted, elongated, as his human vessel was ripped apart from the inside and restructured. Cas screamed again, straining against his chains, as bones broke and twisted. The air around him shimmered, then blackened, as his wings briefly materialized in a form Magnus could see.

“Beautiful,” he smiled.

The skin of Cas’s back stretched and eventually tore, two thick bones pushing free. Cords of tendon and muscle grew up around them as another set of bones grew in. Slowly, piece by piece, corporeal wings grew from Castiel’s vessel, frail and monstrous. Cas panted, exhausted from the pain.

“Not done just yet,” Magnus said, leaving the cage to get a needle and suture thread.

Feathers were already beginning to grow in, soft grey down feathers and the beginnings of outer feathers and flight feathers.  

“Need these out of the way,” Magnus said, and grabbed a handful of feathers and ripped them out.

Castiel screamed and then sobbed, fighting vainly to escape. This was utterly beyond his experience; human hands were never meant to touch an angel’s wings. It was not merely pain, though the pain was horrific enough, it was a violation.

Once he’d cleared away enough of Castiel’s feathers, Magnus started sewing the suture thread into the terribly sensitive, exposed skin. Once he’d finished the crudely embroidered sigil, the air around that wing darkened for a moment, the larger, incorporeal version of that wing becoming more visible again. Then electricity sizzled and flashed in the air around it as it sank fully into the flesh. The wing flared out violently, slamming against the side of the cage before it could reach its full span. The other wing fluttered and spasmed in a weak, crippled attempt at acting in tandem.

“Let’s bring this one to life, too,” Magnus smiled, thrilled with his handiwork. He tore out handfuls of baby feathers, enjoying the sounds it wrenched out of the angel when he did so, and then sewed the sigil into the flesh of that wing as well.

Both wings rose and beat the air. They were still underdeveloped and mostly featherless, but their sheer size was impressive enough.

“They’ll grow in, with time,” Magnus assured Cas. He ran a hand along one of the wings, appreciative of his work, but Cas jerked it away with a pained sound.

“Hm, sensitive, huh?” Magnus said thoughtfully. “I’ll put that in the notes. Good to know.”

 

* * *

 

“I think he’s asleep,” Dean said, as he and Sam both looked into the backseat at Cas.

“Not a great sign,” Sam murmured.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed unhappily. “Hey, go put the bunker on lock-down. I don’t want Cas running off like this, but I don’t wanna lock him in a room, either.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam nodded.

They both got out of the Impala and Dean opened the back door as Sam headed out of the garage into the main interior of the bunker.

“Hey, wake up,” Dean said gently. “C’mon, we’re here.”

Cas was still covered by his wings, so Dean carefully reached out a hand to give them a little rustle to wake Cas up. Dean had barely touched them when Cas shot up, looking absolutely terrified.

“Don’t touch me,” he said slowly, emphasizing each word.

It pulled at Dean’s heart, the way Cas continued to clutch his jacket, as much to cover himself as for comfort. Dean wished Cas could see that he himself was still Dean as much as his jacket and his car were still “Dean.”

“Sorry,” Dean mumbled. “Come on out of the car, we’re home. Let’s get you cleaned up and dressed, ok? And work on getting those restraints off.”

He held out a hand, offering to help Cas out of the car in case his shackled wrists and wings made it too difficult. But Cas managed to climb out on his own, even keeping himself partly covered with the jacket as he did so.

“There you go,” Dean murmured. “You remember where the showers are?”

“This… is the bunker,” Cas said slowly, looking around.

“Yeah, we’re in the bunker. You’re safe here.”

“Dean told me it wasn’t safe… he said I shouldn’t be here,” Cas said, looking at Dean suspiciously.

Dean sighed and looked away guiltily, mulling over how to respond. “Yeah…” he eventually said, “it’s okay now. I’m… I’m sorry, Cas. I’m really… really sorry. It’s safe now. I promise.”

“He said I was a danger,” Cas insisted. “He wouldn't want me here.”

“No, I do, Cas, I want you here. I always wanted you here." Dean rubbed his fingers across his brow, heart hurting. “It's safe now, Cas. You can stay now, I promise. I don’t care what happens, I won’t make you leave again, not for anything.”

Cas stared into Dean’s eyes a long moment. Dean hoped it meant he was getting through to him, even just a little. But, again, Cas’s eyes drifted to the Mark.

“What are you?” Cas asked, eyes narrowed, voice low.

“Cas, I’m _me_. I’m just Dean, I swear to you. I just… have _this_ now.” Dean rolled up his sleeve, showing Cas the Mark. “I got it from Cain. He… gave it to me.”

Dean wasn’t sure what the look on Cas’s face meant. It looked like something between distrust, disgust, and pity.

“I don’t want any of this to be real,” Cas whispered brokenly, before turning and walking away, wings and Dean’s jacket both held tight against his body.

 

 


	2. The Deeper the Wound, I'm Inside You

Cas laid on his side, fetal, wings draped across his naked body, shivering. He didn’t understand the shivering. The concrete floor was chilly, but this didn’t seem related to the cold. His vessel trembled continuously, had been trembling for days, regardless of whether he stood up or laid down.

Occasionally, he slept. At times, he craved food. The things Magnus had done, the many magics he tested on Castiel, had put him in a strange semi-human state. It wasn’t new to Castiel; since he met the Winchesters, there had been multiple times when he had found himself dancing the knife edge between grace and falling. Even so, this state that Magnus had put him in still held its own surprises. The tears that ran down his face, sometimes for hours, were new to him. His vessel had shed tears once before, stigmata tears wept for Samandriel, but these were different. These were human tears, and they flowed as unstoppably and seemingly without specific cause as the shivering.

As he lay on the cold concrete floor, shivering and wet with tears, he came to the realization that death would be a mercy. Before, he had always viewed all human life as supremely sacred, had always felt a wrongness deep in his being when human lives had to be taken.

He had been changed now. Magnus had stripped him of his last trace of naive, innocent love for human life. There was nothing sacred about this. Death would be cleaner.

The door to his cage opened. Magnus’s hands were on him, stroking, petting, hurting. Magnus spoke the words that made his body obey Magnus’s commands against his will, and then removed the chain from his collar.

“Stand,” Magnus said, and Castiel rose. “Go stand beside the table.”

Castiel walked out of his cage, heart racing, body shaking, tears dripping from his chin. It was awful, always, the things Magnus did to him when he made him stand beside this table. His insides churned with dread and yet he helplessly watched himself walk up to the long table against the wall, put his hands flat  on its surface, and then bend down to lay his forehead between them.

“Put your wings on the table,” Magnus said, his voice so soft, so kind, when the words were so cruel.

Castiel sobbed, his breath coming only in broken hitches, as he stretched his wings out across the long, wooden table. He knew what was coming. Magnus had done this before.

Magnus came up beside him and ran a hand along the top of one of Castiel’s wings.

“Stay still,” he ordered.

He brought out long, thick nails and a hammer. When he positioned the first nail, it was placed expertly - much practice had taught him the point that would sink tightly between bones without shattering them, and where no amount of struggling and flailing would allow the nail to simply tear free. He lifted the hammer and drove the nail down, through flesh and feather down to the wood below. Cas screamed, but couldn’t move a finger to defend himself.

When Magnus was finished, Cas was pinned to the table by his wings like a bug to a display mat. He spoke endearments to Cas, told him how handsome and strong he was, how beautiful his body, how priceless he was. He touched Cas appreciatively, curiously, possessively. He studied him like an experiment, stroked him like a pet, tortured him like a monster, and fucked him like a toy. If Castiel had ever felt like a human at all, Magnus took it away. Magnus made him less than human, less than an angel. Cas didn’t even know what he was now.

As an entertainment, Magnus was fingering him, trying to see if he could make him come without touching his cock, when the lights flickered and an alarm bell went off. He pulled his fingers out of Castiel carelessly, and Cas choked back a pained noise.

“I’m honestly getting a bit tired of visitors,” Magnus said, removing his latex medical gloves and dropping them into a trash bin. He then left the room, leaving Cas still pinned to the table.

He returned a few minutes later and immediately started prying the nails out of Cas’s wings and the table.

“Boys claiming they’re Men of Letters,” Magnus said, sounding intrigued and amused even as he was inflicting excruciating pain on an angel. He walked around to the other side to begin prying nails out of the other wing. “I’ve sent a pair of shapeshifters up to test them. I hope they succeed, I think I might actually like to speak with them. I’m terribly curious.”

Castiel was in so much agony, physical, mental, emotional, that Magnus’s words barely filtered through it all.

“There you are. Return to your cage,” Magnus said, once he’d removed the last nail from Cas’s bloodied wings.

Only orders made it through, now. Castiel limped back into his cage and waited for Magnus to lock the chain back onto his collar.

“I’ll be back soon, little birdie,” Magnus promised affectionately, chaining Cas and then locking him into his cage.

It was a lie. Soon, Magnus would be dead, and Dean and Sam would find him here, dirty and bloody and hurting. But when they tried to come near him, all Cas could feel was _hands_ touching him, and all he could hear was the sound of  _orders_ , and all he could see was the blood-red glow of something ancient and evil, and even if he wasn’t an angel anymore, even if he was just a toy or a pet or even a monster, he still knew evil was _wrong_ , and the sight of it repulsed him.

* * *

Castiel remembered this shower. He’d enjoyed the water pressure then, but now it was painful, beating down against his torn and battered body.

Slowly but surely, Cas’s mind was clearing and he was returning to himself. It hurt horribly, burning and aching, but he forced himself to hold his wings under the water. He watched the dried blood gradually wash away, and in places, bright red, fresh blood also began to flow.

* * *

Dean stared into his closet, contemplating the unique challenge of dressing a person with both huge wings and cuffed wrists. He hoped they would find out how to remove the cuffs soon, but in the meantime, Cas was going to be getting out of the shower soon, and he needed clothes now.

Some of the rooms in the Men of Letters bunker had been set up for occupants, including the room Dean had claimed for himself. One of the things the room’s previous occupant had left behind was a closet already stocked with a full wardrobe. Dean hadn’t bothered touching it yet, both because the clothes were just a bit too small and because they were all circa the 1950s.

He wasn’t sure what size Cas wore, but he figured Cas was probably a little smaller than himself. These clothes might fit him.

He looked through the pants, but they were all stiff and uncomfortable feeling to the touch. He sighed. He didn’t want to hand Cas a pair of the most uncomfortable pants in the world after all the hell he’d just been through.

He went instead to the drawers where he kept his own clothes. He dug out the oldest pair of jeans he was still hauling around. They were a size smaller than what he wore these days, so they’d probably fit Cas about right. They were ripped up and threadbare in places, but they were so well broken-in they would hopefully be very comfortable.

He couldn’t figure out how to handle the shirt situation, so he hoped Cas wouldn’t mind walking around shirtless until they could get his wrists unchained.

Dean took the jeans, a pair of boxers, and a towel to the shower room. He hovered near the door, listening to the water running, trying to decide if he should call out to let Cas know these items were waiting for him. But ultimately he decided to just quietly leave them and let Cas figure it out on his own. He wanted Cas to enjoy his shower, and he was worried that hearing Dean’s voice would only startle him.


	3. The Two of Us, All Used and Beaten Up

Dean dropped heavily into the chair across from Sam in the bunker library.

“How’s it going?”

Sam shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “As far as I can tell, some of those sigils were Enochian, and I haven’t found anything in ‘Cuthbert Sinclair’s’ file about working with Enochian at all. Here, take this one, start reading,” Sam said, handing Dean some of the folders from Magnus's file.

They read quietly for a while, Sam occasionally jotting notes down on a legal pad. Dean saw Sam look up at something behind him, saw his eyes widen. He turned around in his chair and saw Cas coming into the room. His eyes widened, too.

He probably should’ve tried harder to come up with a solution to the shirt issue.

Awkwardly, conspicuously, Dean’s first reaction was to turn back around, eyes down on the table.

He tried to tell himself that, in his own defense, angels weren’t something people saw every day. He knew, _knew_ , that the very last thing Cas needed right now was someone eyeballing him. So, he turned away.

Because it was breathtaking, the sight of him. In the cramped cell, in the panic and adrenaline of the moment, all Dean had really seen was that Cas was hurt and scared and needed _out_. Now, cleaned up, in a space large enough he could move freely, Cas was so _beautiful_. Even with his wings mangled the way they were, even with the cuts and bruises that still marred his skin.

Add to that the fact that he was walking around in nothing but a pair of roughed up blue jeans and leather bondage gear, and Dean was _having a hard time_.

 _Now is not the time_ , Dean internally yelled at himself. _Now. Is not. The time._

“Are you bleeding?” Sam asked worriedly.

Dean spun back around and looked Cas over, eventually seeing what Sam had seen. Blood was slowly dripping onto the floor from the tips of his wings, and, following it up, Dean was able to spot trails of blood running between the sparse feathers.

Cas looked himself over, then pulled his wings forward. “Oh,” he murmured. “Yes, I am. I thought that had stopped.”

He dropped his wings and stared at the blood spots on the floor blankly, as if he knew he should do something about it but couldn’t imagine what.

“Can we patch you up?” Dean asked carefully.

Cas looked up at both of them, edging away slightly. He looked caught between wanting both to say yes and to bolt.

Dean said nothing, didn’t even move. He just waited patiently, the way he would with a wounded animal, and tried his best to look concerned and non-threatening.

“Take these off, first,” Cas eventually said, holding out his chained wrists.

Dean grimaced.

“We’re still working on that,” Sam said apologetically. “We need to figure out what Magnus did to enchant those things, and there’s a lot of material here to go through.”

Cas nodded, disappointed.

“If you want, it could just be Sam,” Dean said, forcing the words out. He hated it but he knew it was the right thing to do. He knew he was the one Cas was really afraid of here, not Sam. “He could help with your wings, and I could just stay out here.”

Cas cocked his head, confused. He stared at Dean hard, trying to see behind his words.

“Or just Dean,” Sam offered, more astutely but not without his own misguided assumptions of lingering bad blood.

Cas stirred anxiously, still fighting his conflicting urges. “Just Dean,” he eventually managed.

Dean blinked, shocked.

“Okay,” he said, getting up.

“I’ll keep reading while you guys take care of that,” Sam said, nodding approvingly. “I’ll get the floor, too,” he said, nodding toward the blood spots. “Don’t worry about it.”

“C’mon,” Dean said, gesturing for Cas to follow him out of the library. His instinct was to put a hand on Cas’s shoulder to lead him out, but he stopped his hand several inches shy of actually touching. “We can do this in the kitchen, plenty of room in there, and a first aid kit.”

Cas seemed to notice the respectful distance Dean was keeping, but Dean couldn’t tell if it was helping at all or not.

The bunker kitchen had a large wooden bench table, and Dean gestured toward it.

“Go ahead and sit down,” he said, continuing past to get the first aid kit from a cupboard.

When he turned back around, kit in hand, Cas was still standing in the doorway, staring at the table with a far-away look in his eyes, body rigid with panic. All the color had drained from his face.

Dean could recognize a flashback when he saw one.

“Cas,” he called from the other side of the kitchen. “Cas, come on into the kitchen, it’s okay.”

Cas blinked, coming back into his surroundings, and looked up at Dean.

“Just gonna patch you up,” Dean said, holding up the first aid kit to help bring Cas back into the present moment. “You alright? Should we do this somewhere else?”

Cas’s eyes drifted back to the table and he shuffled backward.

“How ‘bout the shower room, huh? There’s a bench in there we could sit on.”

Cas nodded mutely and fled the room.

Dean looked at the table, wondering what could possibly upset a person about it. He was just walking out to follow Cas when he saw the room Cas’s cage had been in in his mind. He’d been so focused on Cas the details hadn’t mattered at the time, but now that he stopped and focused, he could recall a long wooden table against the far wall. The table had been bloody.

 

* * *

 

Cas was already sitting on the bench in the shower room when Dean entered.

“Cas… you sure you’re okay with me doing this? Sam would do it too,” Dean said, setting the first aid kit down on a vanity.

Cas looked into his eyes a long moment, and then his eyes fluttered away, sweeping down Dean’s body like falling leaves as he struggled to come up with an answer.

“The Mark,” Castiel murmured, his words tentative, unsure, “why was it given to you?”

“I asked for it,” Dean admitted.

Castiel’s brows furrowed. “Why?”

“I need it to kill Abaddon.”

Cas nodded. “I understand. It’s not the fate I would’ve hoped for you, Dean, but I understand.”

“Fate?” Dean echoed, confused.

“If anyone is going to touch me, I would rather it was you,” Cas said quietly, ignoring Dean’s question about fate to finally come back around to answering Dean’s first question, about tending to his wings. “Marked or not.”

Dean stared at Cas for several long, silent heartbeats, totally lost for words.

“Okay,” he eventually said, voice weak. He cleared his throat, trying to get the emotions out of his voice, and turned away to dig in the first aid kit.

“Wow, it _really_ should have occurred to us to change this thing out,” Dean muttered, picking up a vintage Men of Letters-era glass bottle of aspirin and noting that it was old enough that the dosage was measured in _grains_ rather than milligrams. “Aspirin doesn’t… go _bad_ though, right?”

Castiel shrugged.

He picked up a band-aid. The glue holding the paper sleeve together had long since dried up, and the packet fell open in his fingers.

“Yeah… that’s probably not sterile anymore. Um… oh, whatever. It’s a band-aid, you’re an angel, I don’t think it’ll kill you.” He grabbed a handful of band-aids and set them on the bench next to Cas.

“I’m gonna grab a wet washcloth to clean up the blood, okay?”

Cas nodded. When Dean came back, Cas was examining a band-aid. Dean stared at Cas’s wings anxiously, remembering how violently he reacted whenever they’d been touched.

“This gonna be okay, Cas?” he asked, fidgeting with the washcloth.

Cas closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and nodded. He looked like he was tensing to take a bullet.

“I’ll be real careful,” Dean promised, heart aching for how scared Cas looked. He stepped behind Cas and took his first very close look at his wings.

“Oh God, what is this?” he whispered, leaning closer to look at the black thread sewn into Cas’s skin. His stomach lurched. “I… I’m not sure how to get this out. I should ask Sam about this, Cas, I’d just use a knife to pull it out but he might know something better.”

“The sigils?” Cas asked.

“Yeah, this thread shit.”

“Leave it for now. Those need to be removed second.”

“Is there more?” Dean choked.

“Two. Burned in, not sewn.”

Dean’s eyes briefly blurred out of focus, he was so angry and sickened. The only sound was a little _plip-plip_ as water dripped from the washcloth, squeezed in his clenched fist. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the task at hand.

He found a trail of blood amidst some sparse, broken feathers. He followed it up to the source, a ragged puncture wound near one of the joints. It was oozing slowly.

“I found one of the bleeding spots, I’m gonna clean this up and then put one of those bandages on it, okay?” Dean said.

Cas nodded. He was shivering.

His first dab with the washcloth was so gentle, none of the blood came off at all. He clenched his teeth and tried to steel his nerves, and wiped the washcloth around the wound, still exquisitely careful, but firm enough to actually clean the skin this time.

“Are you holding up okay?” Dean asked.

There was no answer, so Dean leaned around Cas’s wing to see his face. His eyes were still squeezed shut, and his eyelashes were now wet with tears.

“Hey,” Dean whispered, coming around the bench to kneel in front of Cas. He set the washcloth down on the bench and laid a hand on Cas’s knee. “Hey, let’s take a break, huh? No rush, it’s not bleeding too bad. No big deal.”

Cas took a long, slow breath and opened his eyes. “Thank you, Dean,” he said with a note of surprise and deep sincerity.

“It’s no problem, Cas,” Dean assured him.

“You can continue,” Cas said, closing his eyes again.

Dean was looking at Cas’s wings as he walked back around the bench, and he saw another seeping wound on the other side. He came up close, looked from one side to the other, and realized that the wound he’d been cleaning went straight through and out the other side.

“What caused this, Cas?” Dean asked nervously. “Is this a gunshot?”

“A nail,” Cas answered, voice thin.

“A _what?”_ Dean said, staring at the wound. It seemed too wide, too jagged for a nail puncture.

“To hold me down,” Cas said, barely audible. “To pin me to the table. And when he takes them out, he has to rock them back and forth to pry them out of the wood.”

Dean stared at the awful wound and felt like the world was spinning around him.

“This looks recent,” he muttered.

“A few hours ago,” Castiel answered.

“...Right before we got to you?”

“It happened many times.”

Dean thought he might need to be sick. He sank to the floor right where he stood and sat with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Cas,” he whispered.

They sat together in silence for a long time before Dean could try tending to Cas’s wounds again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for visual reference, I've posted photos of the real life aspirin bottle I had in mind on my tumblr [for anyone who'd like to see them.](http://rottingtrees.tumblr.com/post/91809254246/very-old-bottle-of-aspirin-i-found-tucked-away)


	4. You and Me, We're In This Together Now

Dean opened the door to the bedroom down the hall from his own and Sam’s. It was dusty and had a stale odor in the air from having been left shut and unused for such a long time. But it had a bed and a working light.

Cas stared into the room and looked unhappy, though he said nothing.

“You can have this room all to yourself, if you want it,” Dean said. “And I mean, we can fix it up, get a fan in here to blow some of this musty air out, make it real nice.”

Cas didn’t respond, but the way his eyes got lost in the room gave Dean a feeling that being shut up alone in another windowless concrete room wasn’t going to be very comforting.

For Dean, the bunker _was_ comforting. He tried to think about the “happiest” places in the bunker, the places he’d want to go if he was upset.

“Hey, tell you what,” he said, shutting the door. “You have this one, instead." He lead Cas back down the hall and opened the door to his own room.

Cas looked into the room, and his face immediately softened.

“This better?” Dean asked hopefully.

Cas stepped into the room, looking around. Dean’s spirits lifted, thinking at last he’d done something right for Cas.

“It feels like you in here,” Cas said, eyes catching on the blade Dean had brought back from Purgatory hanging on the wall with several of Dean’s favorite guns.

“Yeah, Sam makes fun of me, says I’m ‘nesting.’”

“Nesting,” Cas murmured, running his fingertips along a small wooden cross sitting on a shelf near the bed.

“But don’t worry,” Dean said quickly, “you can have this room, I can just sleep in the other one, I don’t mind.”

“This is where you usually sleep?” Cas asked, eyes on the neatly made bed with the pillow shifted to one side.

“Yeah, but like I said, it’s no big deal, really.”

In truth, Dean loved this room. He was protective of this room. When he died, if he somehow went to Heaven this time around, one of the places he expected to see waiting for him up there was this room.

But this was Cas. And for Cas, Dean was willing to give up just about anything.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Cas said, rubbing at a cuffed wrist. “Would you… stay?” He looked up at Dean briefly, worriedly, checking Dean’s reaction. “Please?”

“Yeah, of course, I can do that,” Dean said, heart fluttering ridiculously. “You take the bed. You, uh… want me to just take the floor?”

Cas shook his head.

Dean came up and pulled the covers back for Cas and moved his pillow so Cas could have it. Cas got into the bed and laid on his stomach.

“You want the covers over your wings or under them?” Dean asked.

“Under,” Cas said, and stretched his wings up out of the way.

Dean marvelled at the sight. He wasn’t sure this was something he could ever get used to. He snapped back to attention after a moment and pulled the blankets up around Cas, covering him up to the base of his wings.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said sleepily, settling his face on his chained hands.

Dean left and returned with a pillow, then got into the bed fully dressed. He hoped that keeping all his clothes on would make it easier for Cas. He pushed the blankets out of the way to lay uncovered, turned off the lamp beside the bed, and closed his eyes.

He heard a feathery rustle, and then felt a wing drape over his chest.

He laid perfectly still, wondering if this was unintentional, if Cas was just stretching and would move soon. But the weight of the wing settled on his chest in a way that seemed to imply otherwise. It felt affectionate and trusting. It made Dean feel warm in his heart.

Carefully, so, so carefully, Dean lifted a hand and slowly, gently, stroked the top edge of the wing that rested closest to his face.

Cas sighed with a low, contented rumble that sounded a lot like a purr. He pressed his wing down, hugging Dean with it, pulling Dean slightly closer.

 _This is amazing,_ Dean thought, a boyishly delighted smile on his face. For a second, in his delirious happiness, he wondered if any human being had ever gotten to touch actual angel wings this way before, and he felt so proud of himself for earning it. The tenderness and trust of the moment made it seem completely unique, completely unrelated to the cuts, the bruises, the holes. But his brain quickly made the connection, reminded him that it was a privilege Magnus had taken by force, and the happiness and pride of a moment ago withered away, leaving a nauseous self-hatred and guilt in its place.

“Thank you for inviting me into your nest, Dean,” Cas whispered.

Dean was just about to argue, to say that “nesting” was just a figure of speech, but he stopped himself. If it made Cas happy to think of it as a nest, then a nest it was.

“Anything,” Dean answered.

Cas’s face was turned toward Dean, looking at him in the dark with those soulful, piercing eyes of his, eyes that had seen worlds, galaxies, and chose now to focus entirely on _Dean_. It was intimidating sometimes, and awesome in the classical sense of the word.

“What?” he asked, puzzled.

“Anything,” Dean repeated, struggling to put the breadth of his feelings into concrete words. “Anything you want, anything I can do. Just… anything.”

Despite Dean’s lack of eloquence, Cas seemed to understand. It was something Dean deeply loved about Cas - no matter how many references Cas missed or how many plays on words flew over his head, when it really mattered, even when no one else did, Cas always understood him.

“Thank you,” Cas said. He gave another contented sigh as his eyes drifted shut, and with a strength Dean hadn’t expected of such gravely injured wings, Cas hauled Dean across the mattress with his wing, pulling Dean up against his body through the heap of blankets Dean had pushed aside.

The guilt and the self-loathing melted away, and Dean drifted easily to sleep.


	5. Awake to the Sound As They Peel Apart the Skin

_"It’s an angel tablet," Kevin said, voice exhausted and irritated as he looked it over. “Why? What do you need now?”_

_The door blew open and angels strode in, their powerful fury a physical presence in the air around them._

_"You have fallen in every way imaginable," Hester accused, her words righteous and cutting, staring at Cas with contemptuous disappointment._

_“Dean,” Kevin said insistently, “why do you need this?”_

_“Just translate the damn tablet, Kevin,” Dean shot back without taking his eyes off of Cas and Hester._

_“He won’t be translating anything,” Hester said, looking back at Dean, her eyes wide and fiery. “Not for you.”_

_“We_ need _to know what’s on it,” Dean argued. “We’re trying to save one of your own. Just give us that much.”_

 _“Why should we give you anything, after everything you have taken from us? You think you’re_ saving _one of us? This is_ your _fault, Dean Winchester,” she said, pointing back at Cas who stood there in his white sanitarium scrubs, as vacant as a porcelain doll. “The very_ touch _of you corrupts! When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!”_

_“Dean. Listen to me,” Kevin said loudly._

_Dean didn’t listen. He watched, horrified, as Hester knocked Cas to the ground. He barely made it a step toward them to try to protect Cas when Inais lifted a hand warningly, two fingers upraised, making it clear that if Dean took another step, he would zap Dean God-knows-where, and maddened, helpless Cas would be left to face this alone._

_Cas slowly got up to his knees, and he gazed up at Hester with a heart-wrenching mixture of love and apology, blood streaming from a broken nose, putting up no fight at all._

_“Bleeding!” Hester shouted, and punched Cas hard in the face._

_Dean flinched, every fiber of his being screaming to get between them, to shield Cas, to keep him safe. But he couldn’t. He looked over at Sam, also held at bay by an angel. They were right_ here _, but they couldn’t protect him._

_“Broken!” Hester punched Cas again. “Corrupted!” Hester punched Cas again, and again, and again._

_“SIGILS,” Kevin screamed at Dean._

_“Wait, what?” Dean said, shaking his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He felt like he was in many places at once and he couldn’t keep track of the pieces._

_“You wanted something to power down an angel so you could talk to the vessel? I only had time to get a little from the tablet,” Kevin said._

_They were in the bunker. Dean looked around, saw Kevin’s piles of books and papers on the table in the library, his laptop and his big noise-cancelling headphones._

_“The rest came from an old Men of Letters book. As soon as blood touches the sigil, the spell kicks in.”_

_“They always trust you,” Hester said, coming up behind Kevin._

_“Wake up, Dean,” Kevin said sternly, ignoring Hester. “This is just a dream.”_

_“And this is how they always end up,” Hester finished coldly, reaching a hand up to the back of Kevin’s head. White light shot out from his eyes as he was incinerated from the inside out._

 

* * *

 

Dean shot up in bed, wide awake and heart racing. His eyes flicked back and forth, trying to figure out where he was now. It took a few frantic moments for him to register that he was truly awake now and safe in his own room. He looked over and saw Cas, still asleep, wings folded against his back.

Quietly, Dean lifted himself up and out of the memory foam mattress, careful not to jostle and wake Cas. He padded barefoot out of his room toward the library.

All the lights were still on, and when Dean walked into the library he saw Sam, still reading and taking notes.

“Still at it?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, brow furrowed. He looked up at Dean. “How’s Cas?”

“Sleeping. I got him patched up a little… it was pretty bad.”

Sam grimaced sadly.

“I remembered something, though,” Dean said, heading over to where he kept the small pile of things he had left of Kevin after Mrs. Tran had taken mementos with sentimental value.

“Here, start looking through these,” Dean said, handing Sam the notes Kevin had taken while attempting to translate the angel tablet. “And when Cas wakes up, maybe he can help us translate the pieces Kev had to write in Enochian.”

Dean walked back to the pile of Kevin’s work materials as Sam shuffled through the notes.

“I’m so tired of people dying because of us,” Sam said dismally, running a fingertip across the dead teenager’s handwriting. “I don’t think I want to make another friend ever again.”

“You’re an emo shithead, but I kind of agree with you,” Dean grumbled. “I stopped trying to have friends a long time ago. But people keep getting tangled up with us anyway. At least Charlie got away alive.”

“I miss her,” Sam sighed, maudlin.

“And for her sake, I hope we never see her again,” Dean agreed in his own way. “Oh shit, Sam, here it is, I found it,” Dean exclaimed, grabbing a book mixed in with Kevin’s other things and rushing it over to Sam.

It was an old, leather-bound book entitled, “Advanced Sigils for the Experienced Practitioner: Theory and Application,” and it had sheets of notebook paper shoved inside. Dean handed it to Sam and watched over his shoulder as he opened it to the page the papers were at. The papers were more of Kevin’s notes, and the page in the book referenced a sigil Dean unhappily recognized. It was the sigil he’d painted on the storeroom door when he’d first attempted to tell Sam about Gadreel, the sigil Gadreel had altered, rendered useless, just before he’d killed Kevin.

“This is good, this might have those sigils Magnus used in it,” Sam said, flipping to the front of the book and tapping his finger against a Men of Letters insignia. “Definitely something Magnus might have read.”

“You work on the book then,” Dean said, sitting at the table across from Sam. “Give me those notes of Kevin’s from the angel tablet, I’ll see if there’s anything useful in there.”

The brothers worked quietly, the only sounds the flip of pages or the scratch of Sam’s pencil as he took notes and jotted down page numbers he might need to return to. Dean found it hard to focus and considered returning to his room to get the iPod and headphones he'd inherited from Kevin, as music helped him concentrate.

“Find anything?” Dean asked, just to break the distracting silence.

“Gonna take some time,” Sam said dismissively, looking mildly irritated by the interruption.

Dean envied Sam’s ability to focus so intensely. He went back to Kevin’s notes and drummed his fingers to try to help himself concentrate, but Sam looked up at him with a pointed glare until he stopped.

“Dean, do you need to go get your music or something?” Sam asked, exasperated.

“It’s in my room. I don’t wanna wake Cas up.”

“He’s in your room?” Sam asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Dean fidgeted uncomfortably. “He didn’t like the room down the hall.”

“Surprised you gave it up, you love that room,” Sam said, going back to the book.

“I… didn’t,” Dean said cautiously, unsure how Sam would react.

“You’re sharing?” Sam asked, sounding mildly curious but unsurprised, not even looking up from the book.

“...Yeah,” Dean said, unsure how to feel about Sam’s indifference to the situation.

“Good,” Sam nodded, and then jotted down another quick note on his legal pad.

 _“Good?”_ Dean repeated incredulously.

Sam looked up from his book again with an impatient sigh. “Dean, would you please just go get your music so we can get some work done here? I know you have a hard time reading but we need to get this stuff figured out.”

“I _read_ ,” Dean shot back defensively, scowling.

“I know you read, but you’re _bad_ at it. I don’t know if you’re dyslexic or ADD or what, but whatever it is, you can’t sit still for more than two minutes without music on, so just get your damn headphones so we can work. Cas is a big boy, I’m sure he can handle getting woken up for a second.”

Dean blinked, and briefly contemplated whether or not he should smack Sam one for mouthing off like that. But really, the last thing they needed right now was to get into a fist-fight, and if he was being honest with himself, Sam sort of had a point.

Dean grumbled and went back to his room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Direct quotes from the show have been lifted from episodes 7x21, "Reading Is Fundamental," and 9x09, "Holy Terror." Some have been altered slightly, others are used verbatim.


	6. When All Our Hope Is Gone, We Have to Hold On

Dean slipped back into his room as quietly as possible, but Cas shuffled his wings and stirred in the bed in a way that showed he was awake.

“Where did you go?” he asked, voice sleep roughened.

“I was helping Sam with research. Don’t worry about it, just go back to sleep. We might have an answer to getting those chains off you by morning.”

“You’re leaving again?”

Dean stalled, hand hovering over Kevin's headphones. It stirred something in him, the way Cas sounded disappointed by the prospect.

“You can come help, if you want,” Dean offered. “We could use help with the Enochian.”

Cas nodded and got out of the bed with a little grunting and wing flapping. The memory foam fought back when people tried to leave.

Dean led Cas back out to the library and pulled out the chair next to his own. He hesitated, looking at it, and then turned it backwards so Cas could sit straddling the back of the chair, so his wings could have the space of the open air.

“Thank you,” Cas said, sitting down.

“How’re you feeling, Cas?” Sam asked, looking up from the book.

“I’ve been better,” Cas answered dryly, eyes scanning the papers spread across the table.

Sam nodded understandingly with a soft huff of laughter at the humanness of Cas’s reply and lowered his eyes back to the book.

“I think we’ve got some good leads here,” Sam said, trying to give Cas some optimism.

“Thank you,” Cas said sincerely.

“Here’s the Enochian I thought you could help me with,” Dean said, sliding some of Kevin’s notes Cas’s way.

Cas leaned forward to inspect the writing, and Dean heard feathers rustle and then felt Cas’s wing slip between his back and his chair and pull him close, nearly pulling him off the chair entirely, the way a bird might tuck a nestmate under their wing.

Sam glanced up, smiled, and looked back down.

“Cas,” Dean said, voice flat, “what are you doing?”

“Reading,” Cas answered simply, eyes still on Kevin’s notes. “Do you need me to translate this into English?”

Dean gave Sam an embarrassed look, but Sam’s attention had already fully returned to his note-taking. And if Sam didn’t care or find it weird, Dean decided he’d just allow Cas to leave his wing there, at least for the time being. Maybe it comforted Cas, somehow.

“Yeah, it’s uh… from the tablet,” Dean said, fidgeting under Cas’s wing.

Cas’s wing hugged him closer, a strong, steady pressure that Dean found surprisingly calming, as Cas busied himself with Kevin’s notes. Dean’s fidgeting abated as he relaxed into the affection, and the wing stroked against him in an approving way.

“‘Carry the Beast’s Burden,’” Castiel read aloud. “‘Afflicts the angel with the weaknesses and limitations of its vessel.’ I think this is it, Dean. This is one of the spells Magnus used.”

Both brothers looked up from their own reading and stared hopefully.

“Here, it describes the sigil he used,” Cas said, continuing to read through text. “...And here, further down, it describes how to break the sigil. This spell… it can only be cast by a human, and can only be broken by one.”

“So we have to do it for you,” Dean said.

Cas hesitated a heartbeat, and then nodded. “Yes.”

Sam and Dean both furrowed their brows at Cas, wondering what he was hiding. Cas withdrew his wing from Dean’s back to fold both his wings tightly against his own body, a gesture that only made the deception even more obvious.

“Is there something we should know?” Dean asked, an edge of impatient roughness to his voice. This was too important to lie about, and Dean had had his fill of lies already. On top of the fact that the Mark had made him even less tolerant of bullshit in general.

“These are the words that must be spoken,” Cas said, pressing forward without answering. He wrote the words down in the margins of Kevin’s notes, translated from Enochian characters to Roman letters. “All you have to do is speak the words with intent while holding your dominant hand over the sigil.”

Cas pushed the paper toward Dean and held his hand out toward him, palm down.

“Where’s the sigil?” Dean asked, looking at Cas’s offered hand. It took a moment, but then he saw it - wide lines of scar tissue, whiter and shinier than the surrounding skin, subtle enough he’d missed it at first, formed a sigil large enough it covered the back of Cas’s hand entirely.

Dean grit his teeth angrily, wishing with all his being that he could just resurrect Magnus and kill him one more time. Slower.

“Put your hand over the sigil, Dean,” Cas prompted.

Dean nodded and put his right hand over the sigil. He read the lines on the page mentally several times before trusting himself to try to read them out loud. Finally, once he felt confident enough, he spoke the words of the spell and waited.

Nothing happened.

“It’s as I feared,” Cas sighed. “You won’t be able to do this, Dean. Sam, would you try it?”

“Why not?” Dean demanded.

“You aren’t human enough anymore,” Cas said sadly, meeting Dean’s eyes before looking down at the place on Dean’s sleeve that hid the Mark.

Dean blanched.

“Then what makes you think I’ll be able to do it?” Sam asked, a note of self-loathing in the back of his voice. “Demon-blooded, remember?”

“You’ve been purified, Sam,” Castiel assured him. “Please, try it. I don’t want anyone else to do this, I’d rather it was one of you two.”

Sam’s brows lifted in surprise, and his cheeks colored slightly. He grabbed the paper, read over the words, and then put his hand over Cas’s. He spoke the words slowly, carefully, and as he finished the last one, a soft light illuminated his palm and the back of Cas’s hand. Cas hissed with pain but did not move, and Dean instinctively squeezed his hand on Cas’s knee to help him bear the pain.

The skin on the back of Cas’s hand tore open in a long, thin gash, breaking the sigil. Blood ran off the sides and between his fingers, dripping onto Sam’s legal pad. But just as Dean was about to jump out of his chair to get the first aid kit, blue light shone from the cut, and the cut knitted back closed.

Cas stood up slowly from his chair, feathers growing in rapidly on his wings, balled his fists, and gave his wrists a quick jerk, snapping the chain between them with ease.


	7. Until the Very End of Me, Until the Very End of You

Dean and Sam both stared at Castiel, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, as he stretched his black wings and flapped them slowly, working the newly filled out muscle, adjusting the lay of newly grown feathers. Fully filled out, his wings were even larger than before, with a span that reached easily from the bookcases on one side of the library to the other. The jet black feathers were glossy and shone with a golden lustre in the amber light of the bunker.

“Other sigils remain,” Castiel said, voice level, pragmatic, a jarringly casual counterpoint to the unnerving display of strength as he ripped the cuffs from his wrists as though they were made of thin fabric rather than thick leather and metal. “But we needn’t remove them just yet.”

“Why not?” Dean asked, his voice a thin croak that embarrassed him as he heard it coming out.

Castiel lifted his chin to fit his fingers around the collar snug against his throat. He tore it off one-handed and dropped it to the floor.

“My true wings are still broken,” Castiel answered. “It’s ugly magic, but these sigils have given me functioning wings again. I’m not ready to give them up just yet.”

Sam and Dean nodded.

“Thank you,” Castiel said sincerely, looking at each brother in turn. “Both of you, for saving me.”

“Of course, Cas,” Sam said, as Dean’s eyes slid to the floor guiltily. “You’re family.”

Cas nodded once, a little smile on his face. “You should both sleep now,” he then said, voice authoritative. “You especially, Sam, you’ve been awake some time now.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, stretching his long arms up over his head, a little of his stomach showing as his shirt rode up. “If you’re okay for now, I could really use a couple hours.”

“I’m not tired,” Dean said, taking the book Sam was leaving behind. “You go on.”

Sam looked frustrated but nodded and left for his room, leaving Dean and Cas alone.

“You should sleep, Dean,” Cas repeated, coming up beside him.

“Eh, I’m good,” Dean said, waving it away. “Slept already.”

“It’s the Mark, isn’t it? Making you sleepless," Cas asked, touching his fingertips to Dean’s shoulder, a fleeting brush against where he himself had marked Dean long ago, a brand since wiped clean by a more recent resurrection.

No human was meant to come back, not ever, and yet Dean had suffered death and rebirth over and over again. It was something Castiel could relate to now, having staggered back and forth across the line between grace and humanity so often these past years.

“Yeah, probably,” Dean mumbled, not wanting to talk about it.

“Leave the books for later,” Cas asked. “I’d like to go back to your room. With you.”

Dean stared up at Cas, face hot. “You have no idea how that sounds, do you?” he said, fidgeting.

Cas blinked, contemplated. “Perhaps not. I only mean that I want you to come to bed with me.”

Dean chuckled weakly and shook his head. “Yeah, that wasn’t any better. Come on, let’s just go.”

Dean led Cas out of the library, mind straying dangerously into thoughts of black wings and smooth, tan skin and full, pale lips.

Dean showed Cas into his room and shut the door behind them. Cas looked at the bed a moment and then back up at Dean.

“I don’t know how much time I have left,” Cas admitted in a hushed voice.

“What?” Dean blinked.

Cas’s eyes swept the floor, melancholy and resigned, as he searched for the right words, contemplated what he was willing to admit.

“This grace… it isn’t mine,” Cas eventually said, looking back up at Dean, wings tight against his back. “The angel I took it from… it was a foot soldier, tiny. I’m a seraph, and this grace is like trying to feed a forest fire with a matchbox. It won’t last me very long, and when it’s gone… I’m…” Cas made a gesture with his hands like a fire puffing out into smoke.

“I don’t even know if I want to survive this anymore,” Cas whispered, eyes lowered. “I just want to help fix the things I’ve broken, and then… it will be for the best I think… me being gone.”

Dean stared, his blood going to ice at those words, his stomach feeling hollow.

“I get it,” he said quietly.

Cas looked up, astonishment on his face.

“I do, I get it,” Dean said, heart heavy. “I’ve been thinking the same thing almost word for word for a while now. I can’t even argue with you without making myself a hypocrite. But Cas, man, I just… Even if I’m a hypocrite, even if this means absolutely nothing coming from _me_ … I hope you know, you’re not… worthless. You might break shit sometimes… hell, you might break a lot of shit a lot of the time, but… you’re…” Dean’s eyes fluttered away as he struggled for words. “I’ve seen a lot of shit. I’ve been to Heaven, Hell, _and_ Purgatory. I think I’m probably an authority on awful. And honestly, Cas, in all this time, everything I’ve seen, everywhere I’ve been, you and Sam are the only things left in all creation I think are worth fighting for anymore. It’d really suck to lose you.”

Cas stared, speechless.

“So don’t go running to burn the lights out, okay?” Dean asked sincerely.

Cas nodded, overwhelmed. “Okay,” he whispered.

Dean smiled crookedly, eyes still sad, and went to turn on the bedside lamp before turning off the overhead light. He watched as Cas got back into the bed on his stomach, admiring how utterly beautiful his wings were. How beautiful _he_ was.

“It would suck to lose you, too,” Cas said into his pillow as Dean got into the bed beside him.

Dean chuckled. “Oh yeah?” he murmured, tucking his hands behind his head as he laid on his back.

“So much I don’t know what would become of me,” Cas answered with deep sentiment, stretching a wing over Dean and tucking it around him tightly.

Dean sighed contentedly, growing to crave these moments when Cas’s wings were on him. He didn’t know what to do with such intense words as Cas had spoken, so he contemplated them silently in the back of his mind.

“Can I touch your wings?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I would adore you itching them for me,” Cas said imploringly.

“Here, let me up,” Dean chuckled, pushing softly at Cas’s wing. He rolled up onto his knees and moved to straddle Cas’s lower back. “This okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” Cas exhaled.

Dean started at the base of one wing, where feather gave way to bare skin. He worked his fingers slowly under the feathers until he felt the rough skin underneath and gave it a careful scratching.

Cas groaned appreciatively and his wings flexed open and up, caging Dean between them. Dean sucked in a soft breath of wonder, looking up and up at the wings that stretched well over his head.

“Feel good?” he chuckled, moving up through the feathers to continue scratching along the wing’s length.

“So good,” Cas agreed, back and shoulder muscles flexing handsomely as he squirmed to guide Dean’s fingers to the right spots.

“Little bit of an ‘end of the world’ speech you gave me there,” Dean murmured, combing his fingers through feathers and worming a finger here and there down to itch and pet the hidden skin. “If you’re worried you’re gonna be gone soon, what do you wanna make sure you get to do while you’ve got time left?”

“This,” Cas answered emphatically, voice gravelled.

“Get your wings scratched?” Dean teased, laughing softly. “I’ll get you a back scratcher, your life’ll be complete.”

“The scratching is… wonderful,” Cas purred, and the way his voice sounded and the way his body squirmed under Dean made Dean’s thoughts run directly southward. “But it’s irrelevant,” Cas continued more seriously, derailing Dean’s pornographic thoughts. “You promised me anything. That’s what I want. Anything, as long as it’s you.”

“Me?” Dean echoed incredulously.

“I’ve seen many things, too,” Cas said, voice solemn. “I’ve existed a very long time and have loved many things. The Lord’s creation is so beautiful to me. The other angels accused me of caring too much, feeling too much. But in all this time, nothing has ever felt like you. What I considered love before was nothing compared to what I feel for you.”

“Damn, Cas,” Dean whispered, fingers stilling in Castiel’s feathers.

“Did I say something I should not have?” Cas asked, concerned.

Dean didn’t know what to say. He tried to respond but his mouth opened and no words came to his tongue. He just stared down at Cas, at the beautiful, perfect angel spread out on his bed, and wondered how on Earth something so ancient and powerful and supremely _good_ could ever look at _Dean Winchester_ , colossal failure and general piece of shit, and see something worth all that.

“No, no…” Dean eventually managed to say. “It’s fine. Just… intense.”

Dean wanted to give Cas a better answer than that, but he utterly lacked the words. So he leaned forward and pressed a careful kiss to the soft skin between Cas’s wings.

Cas gasped and shivered.

“Is this okay?” Dean asked worriedly.

“Yes,” Cas whispered shakily.

“Good,” Dean breathed, relieved. He found that once he kissed Cas once it was hard to stop, and he ran kisses up and down his spine and across to where feathers began.

“Please,” Cas said, voice breathless, “come back beside me.”

Dean climbed off of Cas’s back, and a wing swept him back down to the bed and up against Cas’s side. Cas’s hands immediately gathered him close, and Dean wrapped an arm around Cas and with the other hand, pulled Cas’s face close and kissed him.

The end was at the door for both of them. Both had so much sorrow in their hearts that it was slowly crushing them to pieces. But for a sweet, quiet moment, they could kiss and touch and whisper each other’s names and all their darkness and all their fears felt far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this needs one more chapter, or at least a short epilogue or something. However, there's a lot going on in my life at the moment, including some health issues that make it difficult to write. As far as writing goes, I need to focus on my dcbb entry for a while. So I tried to make this chapter sound like a moderately satisfying ending, just in case it takes a long time for me to write anything else on it. I hope that's okay. orz


	8. None of Them Can Stop Us Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to write. I'm doing much better now. Hurray modern medicine. ^_^
> 
> (also I offer up sincere apologies to any Sam/Amelia shippers, truly, I'm sorry, it just felt so hollow and meaningless to me, and if you liked that pairing and ship it, maybe don't read this chapter, it might piss you off.)

Cas stared at Dean in the dark, Dean’s eyes finally closed. He studied the subtle changes already visible, the ways in which the Mark was making its claim not only on Dean’s soul but his flesh as well. Cas pressed his wing possessively against Dean, unhappy. He wanted Dean soft with pie and comfort, not hard with muscle and taint.

Cas knew that sometimes the best way to protect a nest was to leave it. It made his heart ache, it made him sad and scared and deep down all he wanted to do was tuck himself and Dean both under his wings and keep them both there.

But Castiel was a soldier. Before all of this, before all the confusion, the pain and fear and love and _love_ , Castiel had been _uncomplicated_. All he had needed to be was a soldier, nothing more, nothing less. His orders had been clear, black and white, writ in stone, and existence had been easy.

Whenever things became too complex, Cas tried to fall back on what a soldier would do. What a warrior of God would do. What a _protector_ would do.

And what Castiel wanted to protect most of all, more than anything in the world, was his family. The angels were his family, yes, but now, strangely, the Winchesters were too, and at the top of his list, now, in great shining letters, was the name, “ _Dean_.”

How could he protect Dean now, now that Dean had taken the Mark?

He needed the Demon Tablet. The Winchesters had had it once, but Cas knew it was no longer in the bunker, could no longer feel its presence. He knew that the Demon Tablet must surely speak of the Great Curse, the first Mark. Perhaps, God have mercy, it would say how to break it.

Cas studied Dean’s face. Even in sleep, the lines of his face were harder now, more severe.

Magnus had taught Castiel what terror felt like. And Dean, freshly under the burden of the Mark of Cain, had still shown him only gentleness, only compassion. Even touched with the very essence of corruption, Castiel’s Righteous Man had proven he would never, ever hurt him. Cas could not lie still and let him bear this mark and be _damned_. As far as Castiel could see, there was no creature alive, man or angel or anything in between, that deserved it less.

He gently touched his first two fingers to Dean’s brow and pushed a little of his grace into Dean’s body to deepen Dean’s sleep. He felt himself flicker for a moment, a disorienting moment of unreality in which he didn’t possess quite enough grace to exist, and then shook his head as he regained himself. He then quietly pushed himself out of bed and left the room.

As he walked down the hall, he heard the sounds of Sam in the kitchen. He peered through the entryway, watching as Sam prepared food at the stove.

“Good morning, Sam,” he called. It was a benediction he had learned Sam appreciated.

“‘Morning, Cas,” Sam smiled, turning to wave at him. “Want some breakfast?”

A hammer resounded in Castiel’s head. _POUND POUND POUND_. His vision blurred out of focus as he drifted backward a step. _Pound pound pound…_

“Cas? You okay?”

Cas hugged his arms against his chest and his wings against his back, trying to pull himself back to reality. He tried to remember Dean’s voice, the way Dean had pulled him back to reality so easily.

“Do I make you nervous?” Sam asked worriedly.

“No,” Cas assured him. He understood Sam’s assumption of guilt. It was a curse he and his brother shared. “It’s… the table.”

“The… table?” Sam repeated, confused. “Well, uh… how about you wait in the library, and when I finish making breakfast I’ll bring it out there.”

“Alright.”

“You want food?”

“...I don’t know,” Cas admitted after a moment of thought.

Sam stared, then chuckled softly and shook his head. Cas left for the library.

The chair Dean had turned around for Cas was still facing backwards. Cas straddled it, hugging his arms around its back, and rested his chin on it, remembering the feel of Dean under his wing.

It was good, having wings like this. He enjoyed it, even if it had come at such an awful cost. It made him think, maybe that had been the lesson in all of this, that good things often came at great cost... the lesson in being resurrected over and over, in falling, in becoming human, in meeting Dean Winchester...

Castiel was having a full-blown epiphany as Sam came into the library carrying two plates of food.

“Have you ever been in love, Sam?”

Sam put the food down quietly, eyes solemn.

“Yeah.”

“Was it worth it?”

Sam let out a long breath.

“That’s one hell of a question.”

Castiel just watched Sam, waiting.

“Yeah, it was,” Sam eventually said. “My life’s been… kinda messed up. And sometimes I wonder why I still bother getting up in the morning. ...Sometimes I dream about Jessica. Still. And I wake up and think, ‘I got to be happy for a little while. Really happy. It was worth it.’ I’m glad I was here for that, I really am. Maybe it’ll happen again. Probably not, but maybe it will, and if it does, I know it’ll be worth it again, because Jessica was worth being alive for.”

Cas nodded.

“Even though you’ve suffered so much, you’re glad you got to be alive,” Cas said, testing it, seeing if he'd gotten it right.

“Yeah, I am.”

Cas gave another slow, thoughtful nod.

“I believe that is how I feel about your brother.”

“Wow,” Sam huffed, shocked. “I’m... happy for you.”

Castiel stood up, wings flexing slowly in and out. Sam stared up at him.

“Samuel,” Cas said reverently, voice low. “It’s a good name. Blessed. Do you know how much your brother loves you? Please, tell your brother that you love him. Tell him I love him, too, and that being alive was worth it. I have work I must do, and I might not have enough left of me to make it back.”

“Wait, what?”

Cas flinched at the sound of footsteps pounding through the bunker. _Pound-pound-pound_.

“Dean?” Cas whispered, staring as Dean stalked into the library, hair and clothes still askew with sleep but wide awake and bristling with growing anger.

“Why don’t you tell me your damn self?”

Sam groaned with relief.

“Thank you God for not putting me in the middle of that,” he muttered. “I’m gonna go eat this in the kitchen.” He then picked up his plate and walked out, slipping past Dean without another word.

“You were just going to walk out on me without saying goodbye?” Dean said incredulously, walking up close.

Cas looked Dean up and down. “I suppose the Mark has made you less susceptible to angelic powers,” he murmured.

“What, you mojo’d me? Why’re you wasting mojo on me when you’re running on fumes?” Dean demanded angrily. “And what makes you think you’re going anywhere without us? Anything you need to do, we can _help_ you!”

Cas shook his head sadly.

“And about the rest of what you were saying?” Dean said, looking flustered and red-faced. And without another word, he simply closed the space between them, pulled Cas into his arms, and kissed him.

Castiel wrapped his wings around Dean possessively, heart hammering with ecstatic relief at having Dean back where he _belonged_. His hands wound around Dean’s back instinctively, even as his eyes searched Dean’s worriedly, believing in his heart that he needed to leave, even if it hurt, even if it would make Dean stop trusting him again.

“Do _not_ leave me again,” Dean said, holding Cas’s face in his hands. “I can’t lose you, again, Cas, I _can’t._ ”

“I understand why you did it, Dean,” Cas said, eyes drifting shut as Dean’s thumb soothingly stroked his cheek. “But I must try to find a way to undo it.”

“The Mark?”

Cas nodded.

Dean sighed, dropping his hands from Cas’s face to his hips, but keeping his hands on him nonetheless, clutching Cas tightly, as if he feared that if he loosened his grip, even one single finger, Cas would fly away and never come back.

“I won’t let you leave me. I won’t let you do it alone. If you think there’s some way to do it, we do it after I kill Abaddon, and I come with you,” Dean said, eyes stubborn. When Cas looked like he might argue, Dean shushed him, unfinished. “Tell me what you told Sam to tell me,” Dean finally whispered.

Castiel hesitated, staring at Dean, clutching him in his arms and wings. He had learned how to be human from Dean, had subsequently learned his same insecurities.

“I love you,” Cas whispered, trembling.

Dean gave a little nod, swallowing.

“It’s settled then,” he said, voice rough with the weight of the things he couldn’t say. “You’re not going anywhere. So help me, Cas, you’re not going anywhere.” Dean punctuated it with a sharp dig of his fingers into Cas’s hips.

Cas grimaced. “Dean…”

“You _know_ how this shit always goes, Cas,” Dean said, “one of us goes off, tries to play big damn hero, and everything all goes to Hell. I’m not letting it happen like that this time. I won’t. This is too big, there’s too much to lose. I’m not just… I watched my Dad lose my Mom. I watched my brother lose Jessica. I saw you in that cage and I felt part of me ripping itself out. I’m not losing you, Castiel, you hear me? I’m not losing you. Not yet. Not now. Not when we didn’t even get a chance.”

Cas stared into Dean’s eyes, saw the depths of his seriousness, and nodded.

Dean gently disentangled himself from Cas’s arms and wings and took him by the hand. Cas felt his heart, which he hadn’t even noticed was racing until now, start to gently slow down.

“I’ve got something I wanna show you,” Dean said. “Been meaning to for a while. Figure I better hurry up and do it.”

“Alright,” Cas nodded, and followed Dean out of the library.

Dean led Cas back to his room and up to the nightstand with the desk lamp. Cas watched as, with exquisitely gentle fingers, Dean lifted the faded and worn photo of his mother.

“Kinda wanted to show you this picture I've got of my Mom,” Dean said in a soft voice with a little dismissive chuckle to downplay how much it honestly meant to him. He passed the photo to Cas, who took it for the sincere gesture it truly was. “If you ever get back to Heaven, now you’ll know who to look for.”

Cas took the photo with fingers as gentle as Dean’s had been and stared at Mary Winchester’s face. Her eyes were familiar. To a somewhat lesser extent, so was her smile.

Dean reached up and thumbed tears off of Cas’s face.

“I don’t know why this happens,” Cas admitted, taking a hand from the photo to wipe the other side of his face as his eyes drifted from Mary to Dean as a child.

“Yeah, sometimes I don’t know why it happens, either,” Dean shrugged, not a topic he wanted to explore.

“Thank you for showing me this,” Cas said with deep sincerity as he carefully handed the photo back to Dean.

“You already read Dad’s journal, so it felt weird that you hadn’t seen Mom, too.”

Cas nodded. “Yes. I’m happy I got to know about your parents.”

“And here, look,” Dean said, pulling Cas close. He gently tugged his eyelid, to show a freckle on the waterline. “An eyelid freckle. Now you know something weird about me that nobody else knows, except maybe Sam.”

“I already knew about your eyelid freckle,” Cas admitted.

Dean’s face fell. “Seriously?”

“I rebuilt you from nothing. What does ‘raised from perdition’ mean to you, exactly?”

“Fine, smartass,” Dean huffed, giving Cas a little shove on the shoulder.

“Here, I’ll make you aware of something about my vessel that I do not believe any other humans knew of,” Cas said.

Dean smiled and then looked puzzled as Cas grabbed his head and shoved it ear-first to his chest.

“Listen closely.”

Cas concentrated on forcing his vessel to behave the way it would naturally, rather than allowing it the perfections of grace.

“You have a heart murmur?” Dean said.

“Jimmy did. He has a hole in his heart.”

Dean straightened up, looking Cas in the eyes. “Thanks, Cas. You wanna know another one about me?”

“Yes,” Cas said, sincere all the way back to when he first glimmered into existence.

“Promise you won’t go trying to cure the Mark of Cain, or re-open the Gates of Heaven, or any other existence-altering shit, without me again?”

“Yes,” Cas said, bowing his head.

Dean smiled and took Cas by the hand again. “Let’s go to the garage. I’ll show you some stuff in the Impala.”


End file.
